Hello everyone!! Today we are officially one week away from the release of Chain of Iron 😆😆!! I know many people don’t actually like this series, but I’m one of those who thinks that once you’re in the boat, it’s kind of hard to get off of it. Besides, I do think that Chain of Gold is some of Cassandra Clare’s best work so far. I guess there’s no turning back now 🤷🏽‍♀️

So things ended horribly on the first book 😅, which means I’m excited to know what will happen next! But, these novels are looooong and loads of things happen, so after waiting for a year it can be hard to remember everything that went on. And that’s why I’m here today! Or… You’re here today… It depends on how you want to see it. But the deal is that I will explain everything that you HAVE to know for book 2.

So without further ado, I hope you guys are ready to RECAP everything important that happened in the first installment of The Last Hours, Chain of Gold!!

** SPOILERS FOR CHAIN OF GOLD, THE INFERNAL DEVICES AND GHOSTS OF THE SHADOW MARKET **

First off… The demon activity in London has been incredibly quiet, so this new generation of Shadowhunters isn’t very experienced in real combat and often struggle to fight powerful demons. Most of them are much more interested in balls 💃🏽 and gowns 👗 and tea 🫖 and drinks 🥂

Because of this active social envinronment, many families are coming to town too, like the Carstairs and the Blackthornes 👀 The Carstairs (Cordelia’s family) have come because their father was arrested. Now, Cordelia is determined to save him and even willing to marry a strong family if she must. The Blackthornes, on the other hand, have a whole other type of Drama (yeah, capital D drama) going on. Tatiana (Grace’s mother) hates her siblings because she blames them for killing their father. Because of that, she’s lived reclusively for years. During this isolation, her other child, Jesse, died after receiving his first rune. But no one knows that Tatiana used necromancy magic to save his last breath in a locket, making him wander around as a ghost that’s not actually a ghost (we’re not really sure what he is yet 😬). Another secret this family has is that Grace and James Herondale have had a secret relationship for years. However, that becomes common knowledge after they’re all in London.

Soon enough they all figure out that something weird is happening because of all the unusual demon attacks. Even one during the day 😱! Which, let me just point out, rudely interrupted the lovely gathering that the young Shadowhunters were having in the park/lake 😤 But, overall, all these attacks are very suspicious and have also made some of the Shadowhunters extremely ill, even killing most of the ones that were exposed to it. Due to this, everyone’s trying to figure out what this means while simultaneously preparing an antidote that will save everyone that’s sick.

Amidst this chaos we find out several interesting (and complicated) things about all the characters too. And because there are so many of them, it can be difficult to catch up, so here’s some of it:

• Because James and Lucie are the kids of Will Herondale and Tessa Grey, they have special abilities. James teleports himself by traveling in a demon realm, and Lucie communicates with dead people (not exclusively with ghosts)!
• We have the Merry Thieves, made up of James, Matthew, Thomas, and Christopher!! They’re best friends and all very different (more about them to come).
• Cordelia moved to London because her father was arrested (he’s also an alcoholic, but she didn’t know that at first). Also, her brother is Alastair.
• Cordelia is in love with James, but Grace 🤮 has him under a dark spell, so he thinks he’s in love with her. However, she does take off the bracelet towards the middle of the book and we find out that James doesn’t like her at all. He actually likes Cordelia.

It turns out that the demon Tatiana made the deal with (to keep Jesse alive and kill her siblings) is Belial, who happens to be related to Tessa and thus to James and Lucie. This demon’s objective is to roam the earth again, and the only way for him to do so effectively is by possessing someone that he shares blood with (you see where this is going, right? 😒). After learning this, James decides to go into his realm and confront him. Unsurprisingly, a huge demon (the Mantikor) beats the crap out of him and almost kills him 🤦🏽‍♀️ But Cordelia is able to get to him because of her amazing and badass sword, Cortana. With it, they work together and defeat the Mantikor demon 🥳

Back in the real world, Lucie, Matthew and Jessie are waiting for them, but James is very hurt. In a whim, Jessie decides to give James his last breath, brining him back from the brink of death, and Jessie disappears…

Yeah. Bummer.

Well, back at the Institute (when James is recovering and making up his mind about telling Cordelia how he feels) Grace 🤮 comes back and gives him the bracelet again. Now, he thinks that he’s in love with her… Again. And she takes advantage of him… Again 🙄 She asks him to go to Blackthorne Manor and kill her aunt’s automaton. When James does this, he unleashes a huge fire and the house burns down, along with all of the incriminating evidence on Tatiana 🤦🏽‍♀️😒

Unfortunately, this woman isn’t an idiot like her daughter, so she immediately blames James for burning down her house at the Enclave meeting. But Cordelia immediately jumps up in his defense and tells everyone that he couldn’t have done it because he spent all night with her alone in her room 😳 This is obviously outrageous (note the sarcasm), so after the meeting James proposes to Cordelia to protect her reputation, and promises to divorce her in a year.

This is basically everything important that happened in the plot. HOWEVER, there are some important (though plentiful) details that you should all know as well. Here goes:

• The antidote was a success and everyone that had been sick, and hadn’t died, was saved. Among those people is Christopher, who is a sweetheart (and I believe, if it’s not confirmed, the creator of fire messages!).
• Ariadne Bridgestock was also saved, and we now know that Anna Lightwood is in love with her… And its corresponded. But Ariadne wants kids, so she was engaged to Charles Fairchild.
• When Ariadne was sick and unconscious Charles broke off the engagement and is now engaged to Grace Blackthorne (for convenience).
• Though Charles is actually in love with Alastair Carstairs, and Alastair is also in love with him (not much unrequited love in this series). But, Charles is not a very good person and cares more about appearances, so he tells Alastair they can’t be together publicly. Alastair is sick and tired of hiding (props to him!! I love him 😍) so he says he won’t have a secret relationship with him. But he also does this because he kind of likes Thomas…
• Now, Thomas and Alastair shared some quality time together in Paris and they like each other very much. However, Alastair was very mean and a bully during their school years. When Thomas finds out that he spread a very nasty rumor about Matthew in the academy, he’s extremely mad and won’t talk to Alastair anymore.
• Because of said secret, Matthew poisoned his mother, Charlotte, thus killing the baby she was carrying. Matthew now thinks of himself as a murderer and is becoming an alcoholic.
• This is also preventing him from being with Lucie, who he’s in love with. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like him back. In fact, Lucie kind of doesn’t have a crush on anyone. Though her relationship with Jesse is suspicious 🤨, but nothing is set in stone yet. Anyways, Matthew is also developing somewhat of crush on Cordelia because she’s just that lovely.
• Speaking of Lucie, for some idiotic reason 🙄 she promises Grace Blackthorne to help her save Jesse, although she had previously promised James not to get involved in that.
• Lastly, Tatiana and Belial are having an argument. He tells her that as long as Cordelia wields Cortana and she’s near James, he can’t get close to either of them. So, they plan to attack the Clave from within during Tatiana’s banishment in the Adamant Citadel!
• Oh! I almost forgot. Our wonderful Magnus Bane is in London too! He was so fascinated by the drama and intrigue that he decided he might stick around to watch how everything plays out!!

And that’s everything important you need to know about Chain of Gold before reading Chain of Iron 😄!! It was definitely difficult to put together, and I sure hope I didn’t miss anything 😅 But I do think I did a good job.

Let me know if you guys are excited for Chain of Iron and who’s your favorite character!!

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